









X^^A^Lt^ 




Glass. 
Book 






THE GKEAT ISSllE? 



fV^ 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE 



THE UNION CAMPAIGN CLUB, 



EAST BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, 



ON TUESDAY EVENING, OCT. 25, 1864. 



John Jay, Eso. 



NEAV YORK: 
BAKER & GODWIN, PRINTERS 

PRINTING-HOUSE SQUARE, OPPOSITE CITT HALL. 

1864. 






■ A 

.343 






Mr. Jay's Address. 

Before the Union Campaign Club of East Brooklyn, New 
York, Tuesday Evening, Oct. 25, 1864. 



Mr. PREsrDENT, Ladies and Gentlemen : 

In thanking your Club, as I beg leave to do most cordially, for 
the honour you have done me in asking me to follow the speakers 
whose eloquence has already consecrated your campaign quarters 
to those principles of Nationality and Freedom upon which our 
Fathers of the Revolution laid the basis of our Republic, I cannot 
forget the interesting historic associations that cluster around the 
site you have so happily selected. 

Close to this spot, eighty years ago, stood Fort Putnam, after- 
wards called Fort Greene, constituting an important point in the 
line of intrenchments which, extending on tlie one side to the 
Navy Yard, and on the other to Freek's Mill Pond, had been 
thrown up to protect our slender army from the British forces of 
Lord Percy and Lord Cornwallis, aided by the Hessians under 
General Ileiser. 

From this line on tlie 29th August, 177G, after the gallant 
but disastrous engagements in which our forces had failed to 
maintain their ground, though led by Generals Sterling, Sullivan 
and Grant, Washington resolved to withdraw the army across 
the river ; and he accomplished that famous retreat under cover 
of the protecting fog which concealed his movements from the 
British, the sound of whose spades and pickaxes was distinctly 
heard by our retiring soldiers. 

Again Americans assemble on the site of Fort Greene to 
defend the same sacred cause of their country, and to emulate the 



patriotism and lieroism which marked these lines in the last 
century. Engaged now in a contest 9f yet greater magnitude, 
we meet at a time when our prospect of success is brighter far 
than it was then, for our recent news, whether from Atlanta 
or the Shenandoah, Alatoona or Cedar Creek, whether from 
Pennsylvania, Ohio or Indiana, whether from our soldiers aim- 
in<r bullets at Southern rebels, or ballots at I*Torthern rene- 
gades : — all our news, and the despondent tone of our foes, 
whether in Richmond, in London, the vicinity of Niagara, 
Missouri, or at our own doors, tell us that this time it is the 
enemy that retreats and the British Hessians that despair. 

The kindly fog that enveloped the army of Washington is ex- 
changed for the dawning light that smiles upon our victories, 
foretelling the early coming of the blessed day when peace shall 
again reign over our broad country, one, united and entire, 
and the Rebellion and the cause of the Rebellion shall have been 
buried, without hope of a resurrection, in a common grave. 

In addressing you on the great issue presently to be decided 
by the American people, I can hardly hope to say anything which 
has not been again and again more ably presented, for among the 
marked results of this contest is the earnest devotion and the intel- 
lectual activity with which, from a thousand rostrums in every 
section of our land, the varying phases of the question have been 
boldly grasped and exhaustingly analyzed. Indeed, no more strik- 
ing proof of the fitness of educated Americans for self-government 
has been or could lie given, than the almost universal intelligence 
with which the Southern Rebellion is discussed in every school 
district from Maine to Kansas. It is well that this grand con- 
spiracy, begotten of slavery and conceived in treason, secretly 
fondled by N'orthern traitors, openly encouraged by our foes 
abroad, and relied upon to prove the incapacity of the American 
people and the instability of the American Government, should 
at every step of its progress develop, as it has done and as it is 
now doing, the fact that, notwithstanding the national prosperity 
that has blessed our country, and despite its tendencies to de- 
moralization, a church supported by voluntary subscriptions, free 
schools, free speech and a free press have elevated our masses to 



a degree of intelligence, virtue and self-respect absolutely un- 
known in any other land. In the midst of a gigantic revolt that 
"would have shaken to its foundations the most ancient throne in 
Europe, we have not simply called into existence an army and a 
navy at which the world wonders, but we have shown, in the 
good order, prosperity and loyalty of the free States, that a 
government based on the will and the affections of an enlight- 
ened people is beyond all comparison the most stable government 
in the world, 

FOREIGN EFFORTS TO DESTROY THE REPUBLIC. 

These decisive proofs in favour of popular government do not, 
unfortunately, afford profound satisfaction to our aristocratic 
friends across the water, or to the descendants in our midst of the 
tories of the Kevolution, who for three-fourths of a century have 
tendered us their mournful condolence on the demoralizing influ- 
ences of democratic institutions and the inherent weakness of 
republican government. At tlie present moment their hope seems 
to be that by fostering a division in the loyal States, and thus ele- 
vating to power a party pledged to the declaration of the Chicago 
Platform, that the war for a restoration of the Union is a failure, 
and that justice demands "an immediate cessation of hostilities," 
their triumphant predictions of our hopeless dissolution may still 
in some sort be verified. 

" The crash of a New World," said tlie London Times at the 
commencement of the rebellion in 1861, " is an awful phenome- 
non. War has dashed like a comet upon the great American 
liepublic, and all the institutions and destinies of that mighty 
Union seemed scattered in fragments around. * * The United 
States of North America have ceased to be." 

A curious commentary upon this asserted dissolution of our 
government, which Sir Bulwer Lytton hailed as a blessing to 
England and the world, was contained in a recent article of the 
Times warning Canada that she must protect her own border, as 
England could scarcely supply a sufficient army not for a single 
campaiii'n, but for " a single battle, conducted on General Grant's 
principles." 

L.ofC. 



The hostility of the ruling English classes to the American 
Republic, in its struggle with the slave-owner, struck us at first 
with profound surprise and no less profound indignation ; but re- 
flection upon the causes of that hostility have enabled us to view 
their conduct with a calm and philosophic spirit, even while we 
see the ocean covered with the wrecks of our merchantmen burnt, 
by English pirates, our carrying trade transferred to British 
ships, and its profits accumulating in British |)ockets. 

The lesson taught us by these things has been a costly one, 
but it will henceforth secure us from similar disappointment ; and 
it is a lesson which will never be forgotten. "We have learned the 
treatment which Ave may expect if we allow our national power to 
be crippled, or if in our foreign policy we exhibit the least sign 
of timidity or trepidation : and Mr, Seward's dij^lomatic volumes 
show conclusively the sort of argument that is the most certainly 
convincing with European powers. 

THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT AND LAIKD's IKON GLADS. 

All the international law and diplomatic skill of Mr. Adams 
availed nothing towards convincing the British government that 
they were bound in honour to protect us from Laird's iron-clads, 
and that our clear right to the enforcement of a fair neutrality 
depended on the law of nations, and could not be in the least 
abridged by the insufficient provisions of their own statutes. 

On the 1st of September, 1863, Earl Russell wrote to Mr. 
Adams announcing the deliberate decision of the British govern- 
ment upon the matter, and in a tone that intimated that the cor- 
respondence was concluded : 

" Under these circumstances and having regard to the entire 
insufiiciency of the depositions to prove any infraction of the law, 
her majesty's government are advised that they cannot interfere 
in any way with these vessels." 

Mr. Adams replied on the 5th September : " It would be super- 
fluous in me to point out to your lordship that this is loarT This 
" superfluous" suggestion this quiet reminder, effected more than 
folios of arguments, and illumined Downing street with a flood 



of light upon the dubious powers of the British government. On 
the third day after it was written Mr. Adams received the follow- 
ing: 

" Foreign Office, September 8th, 1863. 
" Lord Russell presents his compliments to Mr. Adams, and has 
the honour to inform him that instructions have been issued which 
will prevent the departure of the two iron-clad vessels from Liv- 
erpool." 

The voluminous correspondence of the State Department, 
interesting as it is, contains few letters so interesting and so 
instructive as tliese pithy notes. Ko great power of Europe 
is to be driven from a course of action which it regards as 
beneficial to its own interests, however detrimental it may be 
to us, by the most eloquent appeals to international affection, 
or the most convincing references to Grotius and Yattel. Re- 
gret as we may that Governmental Cabinets are swayed by 
other than the holiest considerations of Christian duty ; and the 
fact remains written in the diplomacy of every nation, not ex- 
cepting our own, that the conduct of one power to another is 
measured less by theoretic doctiines of duty and honour than by 
its idea as to the point of endurance to which it will be per- 
fectly safe to go ; and it is fair to them and ourselves, that upon 
this point, so far as our nation is concerned, there should be hence- 
forth no mistake. "We are the judges of our own rights and our 
own honour ; and of our readiness and ability to defend them 
there should never be a question. Had England been sooner 
told "this is war," the "290" would never have escaped from 
Liverpool. England would have been spared that great scandal 
on her honour: the aggravating pile of claims now accumulating 
in Downing street, for the outrages committed by the Alabama, 
and all the exasi^eration of feeling aroused by them in this coun- 
try would have been saved. 

Let the formula, capable as it is of simple variation, be pre- 
served for occasional reminder in our diplomatic copy-book ; as 
happily expressing that ultima ratio which is sometimes essential 
to the completeness of the diplomatic arguments, and which, 
when happily blended with them, tends to dissipate all lingering 



doubts and to produce a prompt and profound conviction. In 
this struggle for national existence, promptness even in diplomacy 
becomes to us a military necessity, and as we have seen in the 
case of the Alabama, delays are dangerous. General Dix has 
furnished us with a simple rule to be applied at home : " If any 
man attempts to haul down the national flag, shoot him on the 
spot," and so to every intermeddling of a foreign government 
with our affairs, even though it be done at the instance of 
JSTorthern renegades, like the peace Democrats who sought inter- 
vention from Lord Lyons, appearing as the tools and toadies of 
a foreign aristocracy, and reminding us of Benedict Arnold and 
his secret interviews with the British agent, the most gentle dip- 
lomatic argument, against the outrage, may breathe at its close 
the spirit that animates the phrase, " It would be superfluous to 
point out to your Lordship that this is war." 

THE INCONSISTENCY OF ENGLISH CRITICISM. 

In regard to English criticism about which we were formerly 
a little sensitive, we have learned to weigh the motives of the 
critic, and to discriminate between tlie fair critiques of our foreign 
friends and the unfair comments of tliose who, from the preju- 
dices of class or the interests of party, are inevitably our foes. 

]^ot simply the dispatches of the foreign ofiice, but the organs 
of English opinion, which are openly in favor of the Slave Con- 
federacy, serve as useful monitors of the curious inconsistency 
which may be unconsciously reached by those who devote them- 
selves to an unrighteous cause with small regard to principle or 
honour. 

The unfriendly comments of this class on Mr. Lincoln's Admin- 
istration, are now daily re-produced by our pro-slavery rebel 
organs as arguments against his re-election, and they are at once 
interesting and suggestive. 

At first Mr. Lincoln was denounced for apathy and sluggish- 
ness in -not defending promptly the national supremacy and 
in allowing the Kepublic to drift into dissolution. When at last 
he struck the first blow in return for tlie many tliat had been 
struck by the rebels, lie was promptly ciiarged with " undue 



9 

haste and inexcusable precipitation " in plunging into " a sense- 
less and bloody strife." Every measure of Government, the act 
of confiscation for instance, which promised to cripple the rebel- 
lion was characterized as unnaturally cruel and without prece- 
dent, as if no such thing as confiscation had ever been known in 
England ; whereas, as the Saturday Review remarked in an arti- 
cle on Irish history. 

" After a quarrel every one confiscated — Mary confiscated, 
Elizabeth confiscated, the Stuarts confiscated, James II. confis- 
cated, William HI. confiscated." 

So with Slavery. Although England has led the world in the 
work of emancipation, and her truest glory is associated with the 
names of Clarkson, Wilberforce, Fowell Buxton, and that noble 
Commoner, long since departed, the late lamented Henry Brough- 
ham — although emancipation has become the policy of the age, 
not simply tliroughout Christendom, but even of less enlightened 
portions of the globe ; although the Emperor of Russia has eman- 
cipated his serfs, and the Emperor of Turkey has abolished the 
slave market, although the Bey of Tunis has freed his slaves and 
the Tributary jSTomads of Asiatic Tartary have given liberty to 
theirs, the idea of abolition in the United States, as a military 
result of the war inaugurated by the slave power, causes grief 
and alarm to the London Times, which, entering into our Presi- 
dential campaign as earnestly as if the fate of England hung 
upon the issue, deprecates the re-election of Mr. Lincoln among 
other reasons for fear that he would sanction what it is pleased 
to call " the rash and cruel policy of immediate emancipation." 

And thus the Times, that has so long thundered its ana- 
themas at the ximerican people 'for not abolishing slavery in 
the Southern States where, under the Constitution, they had no 
power to touch it, is found hand in hand with our pro-slavery 
sympathizers at the North, the mitred bisliops and robed priests 
who bless it from the pulpit, down to the "friends" of 'Governor 
Seymour, who in their zeal for the Domestic Institution, burned 
an asylum for colored orphans, hung negroes with brutalities 
never exceeded by a Parisian mob in the utmost fury of the 
Revolution and trampled to death,— women aiding in the murder, 
a commissioned officer of the United States. 



10 

The reason why the Thnes denounces as cruel, immediate 
emancipation, the safety of which we are every day illustrating, 
is simply that the abolition of slavery would add to the glory, 
the prestige, the power and the perpetuitj" of the American Re- 
public. And to effect the extinguishment of the United States, 
to see trailed in the dust the stars and stripes ; the party repre- 
sented by the Times would perpetuate American slavery — con- 
secrate it as the corner-stone of a new Empire . and continue the 
whip, the handcuff, the chain, the collar, the branding-iron, and 
the auction-block, as measuring at this day the extent of the 
Christianity and the civilization which it represents as a reputed 
organ of English opinion ! All this infamy because emancipation 
clearly forshadowed by the defeat of the rebellion, is essential to 
terminate the plot for humbling the pride of the American peo- 
ple — for tearing asunder the American Eepublic, for destroying 
forever American unity, for annihilating forever Ameiican 
strength, and enabling British opponents of an extension of the 
franchise to point to the scattered fragments of our once great 
Republic, as a warning to all who should hereafter dare to advo- 
cate in England Rej^resentative Reform, or to name the name of 
popular sovereignty ! 

THE BEARING OF THE ELECTION UPON EUROPE. 

I have dwelt for a moment upon this deep, persistent hostility 
of a leading class in England to the restoration of our national 
supremacy, for the reason that it has a direct and momentous 
bearing upon the pending Presidential election. 

Accustomed as we are, every four years, to assemble quietly 
at the polls and cast our vote for Presidental electors, it requires 
a little reflection to enable us to estimate aright the grandeur of 
the struggle on which we are about to enter ; and, perhaps, its 
profound and world-wide importance is appreciated by the states- 
men of Europe more readily than by ourselves. 

Grand as was the struggle of the American Revolution when, 
as feeble colonies, after prolonged efforts for the redress of wrongs 
done in violation of our Constitutional rights as British subjects, 
we successfully defied for seven years the army and navy of Great 



11 

Britain, it is excelled in magnitude and solemnity bj the ques- 
tion — whether the nation then founded bj our fathers shall now 
succumb in its might to a rebellious faction, and sacrifice its ter- 
ritorial integrity, its national supremacy, its popular sovereignty, 
its free institutions and free principles, to aid the establishment 
of a slave empire, and to enable the advocates of despotism and 
aristocracy throughout the globe to declare that the experiment 
of Republican Government in America has been a blunder, and 
that its repetition elsewhere would be a crime. 

Hajjpily removed from immediate contact with the concerns of 
Europe, faithfully adhering to the farewell advice of Washington 
to avoid entangling alliances with foreign nations, we have been 
industriously engaged in developing the resources of om- Imperial 
Republic, in extending our canals and railroads and telegraphs, 
so as to place the sea board and the interior side by side ; in- 
creasing our commercial tonnage and extending our manufactures, 
improving our agriculture, opening our mines of gold and quick- 
silver, lead and iron, and our wells of oil, extending our settle- 
jnents to the slopes of tlie Reeky Mountains, with schools and 
churches for an endless train of emigrants from every part of 
Europe, and organizing, year by year, Reiniblican States hun- 
dreds of miles in extent and thousands of miles distant from each 
other. It thus happens that our thoughts liave not been very much 
engrossed with the petty wars and disputes, liowever interesting 
to themselves, of the rival Cabinets of Europe ; nor have we 
become so enamored of the workings of the balance-of-power 
principle in preserving the harmony of the Continent as to be 
anxious to dissolve into separate nationalities, that we may secure 
peace and Ijarmony on the European plan ; but we were content 
that Europe should go lier way, while we took our own. 

It is but a little while since those foreign rulers cared as little, 
or even less, about the affairs of America. 

When the question of the ratification of the American Consti- 
tution — that Constitution M'hich this RebellioTi aims to over- 
throw — and the preservation of which in its integrity, as the 
great charter of our Republic, now depends upon the issue of this 
election : when the question of its ratification was being debated 
in the Virginia Convention in 1788, Patrick Henry said, in reply 



12 

to the argument of an opponent, " Give me leave to say that 
Europe is too mucli engaged about subjects of greater magnitude 
to attend to us. On that great theatre of the world, the little 
American matters vanish." 

That day has passed, and passed forever. Less than four 
score years are gone ; and, within the memory of living men, our 
transatlantic Republic has risen from a confederacy of feeble 
colonies to the position of a power great in its territorial extent, 
great in its material resources, great in the industry and energy 
and intelligence of its people ; but greater, far greater, in the 
world-wide influence of its national and fundamental jDrinciple — 
that all men are born free and equal, and with an inalienable 
right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 



OUR OPPONENTS IN THE CANVASS. 

In this Presidential Canvass our opponents are many, repre- 
senting opposite interests, but all earnest and active for our defeat. 
The so-called Democratic party is not, at this time, without 
distinguished and powerful allies : Jeff. Davis in Richmond, 
Louis Napoleon in Paris, Maximilian in Mexico, the Southern 
Aid Association in London, the blockade-runners at Liverpool, 
the British merchants, whose incomes have been swelled by 
the desti'uctiou of our commerce, the leading Democrats of Xew 
York, who waited upon Lord Lyons to invite Britisli intervention, 
and advise him of their readiness to let the Confederates go, are 
all warmly in favour of tlie candidates nominated at Chicago. 

Eloquent appeals are made to the Rebel army in the South, 
to rouse themselves to new ardour, that they may ensure the suc- 
cess of the Democratic ticket. Its candidates are cheered along 
the rebel lines of Petersburgh, in response to the sliouts of our 
soldiers for Lincoln, and the rebel prisoners, as they pass, in the 
streets of Washington, the banner of war for the Union greet it 
with groans, and salute the names of McClellan and Pendleton 
as those of friends. 

"McClellan- s election on the Chicago platform," says the 
Charleston Ifercury, " must lead to peace and our independence." 



13 

" Our success in battle," says the Charleston Courier, "insures 
the success of McClellan ; our failure leads to his defeat." 

This fact, so clear and simple, is perfectly understood by the 
Democratic leaders in Xew York. Their daily eifort is, to de- 
preciate the importance of our victories ; to magnify the slightest 
reverse to our arms into significant defeat ; and ^vhile the world 
is marveling at our success, and good news follows fast upon the 
wires, and it is becoming clear that we are nearing the beginning 
of the end, they are mournful even to sadness, at the fear, or 
shall I say the hope, of impending disaster to our armies. They 
41 tremble for Grant at Petersburgh ; still more for Sherman at 
Atlanta ; Init, most of all, for Sheridan, lest he should be utterly 
'• -ubbled up" by Early and Longstreet 

But the uneasiness of these gentlemen, wliile their prophesies of 
evil are awaiting fulfillment, is hardly greater than their anguish 
when they are utterly falsified, and our victories are ascertained 
to lie brilliant and decisive. The proposition of our Common 
Council, to illuminate the city in honor of the achievements of 
our gallant soldiers, was met by the Democratic Mayor of Xew 
Y,ji-k — Mr. Guntlier — with a i)romi»t and indignant negative. 
Recognizing the fact that the success of our nation's fiag tended 
tio defeat his partv, he was not readv to exhibit the semblance of 
a juy which he did not and could not feel. 

SorTHKKX PUOOKS OF (»UR PROOKKSS TOWAKKS Kl>U.NIOX. 

EvL'ry new victory is a new contradiction of the theory em- 
bodied in the Chicago plattbrm, that the war is a failure, and 
- every mail from the South brings us fresh proofs that the military 
J despotism that rules at Richmond is losing the confidence of the 
Southern people, and even of their army itself. Gen. Grant tells 
us that the Rebels are losing, by desertion, about a regiment a 
day, and this statement which seemed almost incredible, is con- 
firmed by Jeft'. Davis' confession, that two-thirds of his army are 
'• al.sent witiiout leave," while the Richmond papers explain the 
defeat of Early, when Sheridan sent him " whirling through Win- 
chester," by declaring that the Valley was running with apple 
brandy, and that officers and men were drunk together : and both 



14 

Kiclimond and Georgia papers frankly acknowledge that their 
people fear their own lawless, disorganized and thieving armies 
far more than they do the well-ordered and disciplined armies of 
the United States. Such is onr position at this moment. Our 
armies have been largely reinforced with most excellent material, 
and the rebel army is being depleted. In view of the difficulty 
they find in coping with our armies in fair fight on the battle- 
field, or even when intrenched in fortifications like those of Yicks- 
burg and Atlanta, they are resorting to cowardly raids upon the 
unarmed citizens of our northern border, and the only victory 
they have gained of late was that won by the thieving gang from 
Canada, who, with a gallantry worthy of Semraes, succeeded in 
robbing the startled villagers of St. Albans. 

The Richmond Examiner^ of October 17, hardly a week ago^ 
disclosed a significant fact, illustrating the feelings of the southern 
soldiers, when it said, "There is but one single disagreeable feature 
in the situation of the armies near Richmond. The j)ickets are 
not fifty yards apart, and they are continually talking ;" and the 
editor insists that it must be stopped as the only way of stopping 
'desertion. 

All these facts go to shew tliat the people of the South, and 
even their soldiers, are beginning to understand the whole matter ; 
that they are learning to regret the mad step of secession into 
which they were precipitated by a few ambitious party leaders, 
representing a faction of their oligarchy of 350,000 slaveholders \ 
that they have become disgusted with the non-fulfillment of the 
bright promises then made to them, and are fretting against the 
stern military despotism which lias swept their homes with a re- 
morseless conscription, and exposed the wives and widows left 
behind to the merciless exactions of the rebel army. 

They have learned from such admirable documents as the 
letters of Sherman that what we " want, and will have, is a just 
obedience to the laws of the United States," and it is no wonder 
that their pickets fraternize with ours, and that the country people 
actually fear less the approach of the once-hated Yankees than 
that of their own boasted " cliivalry." Sherman's tone to the 
Mayor of Atlanta was clear. He spoke the sentiment of the 
country when he said, " I want peace, and believe it can only be 



15 



reached through Union and war, and I will ever conduct war 
purely with a view to early and perfect success. But, my dear 
sir, when that peace does come, you may call on me for anything. 
Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you 
to shield your liomes and families against danger fi'om every 
quarter," 

In this situation of affairs, the advice of Generals Grant and 
Meade, and Sherman and Dix, and Hancock and Sheri 'an. 
Sickles and Meaglier, and I believe of every other general in the 
field or out of the field, unless it be General McClellan or Gen- 
eral Buell, is to push tiie war sharply, crush the military power 
of Davis, and release from his control the southern people and 
the southern States upon which lie has placed his heel ; for as we 
have seen in his tone to their Governors he has no more regard for 
the State sovereignty of Is"orth Carolina and Georgia than he has 
for the negroes whom he orders to the trenches. In the recent 
significant letter of Mr. Boyce, of South Carolina, to Mr. Jeffer- 
son Davis, the fact is frankly admitted that not simply- the abso- 
lute sovereignty which the seceded States claim to have, but the 
constitutional dignity and State rights which they possessed in 
the Union are absolutely trampled out. " Is not our federal gov- 
ernment," says Mr. Boyce, " in the exercise of every possible 
power of a National centralized despotism ? Suppose there were 
no States, only provinces, and unlimited power was conferred 
upon you and Congress, what greater power would you exercise 
than you can now? - * It is plain that our government exer- 
cises the power of a central desj)otisni ?" 

The moment the central Richmond despotism is broken the 
work of restoration will have begun, and the peoj^lc, enabled to 
control their own State action, will return, and this is the sinijde 
military problem of which we await the solution by General Grant. 
" It cannot be denied," is the language of the Richmond Whig, 
(September 12th, 1864,) "that if they (the United States) can 
bring together a force large enough to overwhelm Lee's army 
wherever the theatre of battle maybe, they do imperil Richmond, 
and with it the Confederate cause itself." Then the southern 
people, freed from the controul of the treacherous conspirators 
who have deceived and misled them, will be able to think and 



16 

act for themselves. And the facts to which I have alluded, show- 
ing a return of better feeling toward our soldiers individually 
and our army in a body, are of jirofound interest and importance, 
as indicating the easy settlement of our National difficulties when 
once the question of military power is determined in our favour. 
And now it is constitutionally submitted to the American 
people to declare the policy which shall controul 'the ]S"ational 
Government during the next four years. There would have been 
other grave questions to be considered had this election chanced 
to occur soon after the rebellion commenced, when our army and 
our navy were to be created, a depleted treasury filled, our ruined 
credit restored; but all these we now have. Our army of vete- 
rans, whose battle-thinned ranks are again full, led by generals 
whose names will stand by those of Cesar, Wellington, and Napo- 
leon ; a navy, which, with all that has been said in disparagement 
of Mr. Secretary Welles, has no compeer in Europe, whose naval 
fight at New Orleans, and again at Mobile, with Farragut lashed in 
the mast-head, will be coupled in history with that of Nelson ; a 
treasury replenished at will from the exhaustless coffers of the 
American people, and a credit already appreciated on German 
Bourse, and entitled to a confidence greater than belongs to the 



PUDIATION. 

As regards our national resources, the suggestion of Governor 
Seymour, of the possible disgrace of national repudiation, echoed 
and repeated with characteristic arrogance by the London Times^ 
has led to a more familiar acquaintance with the statistics of our 
census, and, without washing to detain you long upon this point, 
you will perhaps allow me to remind you of the leading facts of 
our condition as compared with the nations of the world. They 
not only illustrate a chief reason of the foreign jealousy that has 
been of late exhibited towards our Republic, but they throw a 
flood of light upon the great question of our pi-esent policy in 
the treatment of this rebellion. 

Our territory, which embraced at the peace of 1783, 800,000 



17 

square miles, was enlarged by the purchase of Louisiana, the ac- 
quisition of Florida, the annexation of Texas, and the Oregon 
treaty, and the treaty with Mexico, to 2,900,000 square miles, 
almost four times its original area, nearly double the area of all 
Europe, excluding Russia, and more than twenty times as large as 
Great Britain. Our population has increased from about four 
millions in 1790 to thirty millions in 1860, the annual increase 
having been four times that of Russia, six times that of England, 
nine times that of Austria, and ten times that of France, and ac- 
cording to the ratio of increase, which has been singularly uniform, 
our population in 1890 would be about one hundred and seven 
millions. 

If this seems fanciful and exaggerated, remember that a resort 
to statistics is the only safe mode of obtaining a correct idea of 
the present and future of our country, and, as Lord Stanley — who, 
by the way, appreciates aright the American question — has well 
remarked, " When in discussing the social question we apply the 
statistical test, we are really doing no more than appealing from 
imagination to facts, from an imperfect to a perfect system of 
observation." 

During the last decade, then, from 1850 to 1860, while the 
population of Great Britain increased less than one per cent., that 
of the United States increased thirty-five per cent. During the 
same ten years, .while the estimated increase of national wealth 
in Great Britain was 33 per cent., the increase of our national 
wealth was 126 per cent., rising from seven thousand millions 
(7,135,780,000) in 1850, to sixteen thousand millions (16,159,616,- 
000) in 1860, at tlie rate of nvn-o tlian nine hundred millions a 
year. 

Ex pede Jlcrculem ! From this little item of the census you 
can judge of the stature of your countiy. A volume of statis- 
tics could hardly show more clearly the length and breadth and 
heiglit of the gigantic nationality, which this rebellion, instigated 
by the ambition of a handful of slaveholders, is attempting to 
destroy. 

A territory twenty times as large as Great-Britain, a popula- 
tion increasing at the rate of 35 per cent, to her 1 per cent., and a 
national wealth increasing four times as rapidly, despite her mon- 
2 



18 

ster capital accumulated through centuries, and her earlj su- 
periority in agriculture, commerce, arts and manufactures ! 

I drop the topic of comparison, which I have introduced, — not 
to encourage in this trial hour a spirit of boastfulness, for which it 
will be time enough when we have put our armour off, but simply 
to enable us the more readily to appreciate our actual position 
now. 

Although still in our earliest youth, we are exhibiting a vigour 
without precedent in the history of nations whose annals com- 
menced a thousand years ago ; and it is worthy of careful note 
that, while the increase of our numbers has been steady at about 
34 per cent, for each decade, the ratio of increase of our national 
wealth has been always in excess of the increase of population, 
and of late unexampled in its advancement. 

From 1830 to 1840, our wealth increased 12 per cent.; from 
1810 to 1850, 61 per cent., and from 1850 to 1860, as I have said, 
136 per cent. At the same rate, in 1870 it would be 250 per 
cent.; and, as Mr. Walker has shown, in the year 1890 — twenty- 
six years from to-day — our national wealth would be nearly four 
times that of Great-Britain, a fact that should tend to relieve the 
anxiety of our English friends in regard to our ability to pay a 
debt hardly half as large as their own. 

Our national wealth in 1860, if we look simply to the States 
in our possession, was estimated at nearly 12,000 millions, about 
four times that of the Rebels ; and, at the annual rate of increase 
of twelve and a half per cent., it has increased in the four years 
since 1860 some 6,000 millions. 

The loyal States, despite the boasts of Davis and his cabinet, 
that they would water their horses in the Hudson, occupy the 
palaces of New York, and plant their confederate counterfeit of 
our flag over Faneuil Hall, have escaped the desolation and de- 
struction of war, thanks to the brave army of the Potomac, under 
McClellan at Antietam, and under Meade at Gettysburg. The 
national payments are chiefly to our own people. Emigration, 
that inexhaustible source of wealth and power, has increased, is 
increasing, and will continue to increase, despite all the efforts of 
Mayor Gunther to prevent it. The new States and Territories 
are rapidly filling up. Our resources are being marvelously de- 



19 

veloped ; and the American who, in the face of these facts, ven- 
tures to suggest the danger of repudiation, even though the sug- 
gestion be simplv for party purposes, shows that his discretion, 
his intelligence and his honesty are all upon a par. 

Even in England, where, perhaps, the wish was ofttimes father 
to the thought, and the monstrous inventions of rebel agents 
have been accepted as scriptural truth, the London Economist 
and Saturday Review have recently enlightened their bewildered 
readers, and shown them that the wealth of America is distributed 
among an immense number of persons of small income ; and the 
Economist^ estimating the wage-income of the United States as 
equal to the property-income of Great Britain, demonstrated our 
capacity to bear easily 600 millions dollars annual taxation. 

EFFECT OF THE CUICxVGO PLATFORM OX THE RIGHTS OF NEUTRALS. 

Tliis digression from the' question of the Presidential election is 
not altogether a digression, for our present foreign relations ren- 
der it doubly imperative that the domestic policy we now adopt 
shall be such as will warn them against the slightest infringement 
upon our interests or our honour. And in two points especially the 
declarations of the Chicago platform have a bearing upon the po- 
sition towards us of foreign nations that has scarcely attracted 
the degree of attention to which it is entitled. The resolutions 
declare (and you know with Avhat anxious deliberations those re- 
solutions must have been prepared, and with what unanimity and 
enthusiasm they were adopted aS' expressing the decided ])olicy of 
the party) : 

" That this Convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of 
the American people, that, after four years of failure to restore 
the Union by the experiment of war * * * *, justice, humanity 
and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made 
for a cessation of hostilities." 

Here is a solemn pledge on the part of the American people, if 
they adopt it by electing the candidate selected to execute this 
policy : 

Firsts that the war for the Union was an experiment and a 
failure. 



20 

Second, that it was unjust, and that justice demands its dis- 
continuance. 

Third, that hostilities on our part shall immediately cease. 

And to these things asserted in the Resolutions is to be added 
the all-significant fact, that a pledge for the maintenance of the 
National unity, proposed to be inserted in the draft of the Resolu- 
tions, was rejected. 

Add to these another fact, that the " leading Democrats " who 
waited on Lord Lyons intimated that British intervention 
would be accepted by the Democratic party when they should 
come into power, and that they were preparing to acquiesce in Se- 
cession, and it is not difficult to understand why the Southern 
Rebels and their foreign friends are the warm advocates of Mc 
Clellan. It is a little curious that we have to go to Parliamentary 
Blue-books and the correspondence of a British Minister, to learn 
the real policy and intention of the great American Democratic 
party ; and the fact involuntarily suggests a doubt whether it is, 
in truth, either American or Democratic ; but it is not, perhaps, 
very much more strange than it is to see a foreign millionaire, the 
agent of the Rothschilds, and lately a representative of "the 
most despotic family in Europe," the Austrian Hapsburgs, presid- 
ing over its National Committee. 

Besides the information furnished us by Lord Lyons, we have 
more from Mr. W. S. Lindsay, of the House of .Commons, who, 
very recently, delivered an address to his constituents, in which, 
after quoting a resolution passed by Rebel sympathizers in Ohio, 
he said — 

" A member of the Federal Congress writes to me that meetings are being held 
through the West and adjoining States for securing peace and separation, and he asks 
me to make known these meetings in this country, and he adds : ' There must be a 
Western as well as a Southern Confederacy, for the party who advocates this course 
grows stronger and stronger every day.' I am glad to see that feeling arising in the 
Southern States, and the feeling is increasuig in the West. A very distinguished 
statesman, a member of the Senate, writing to a friend of mine — a statesman who 
occupies a very high position in Europe, and was a Minister of the United States 
Cabinet — writes: 'We are tumbling to pieces fast, and \mless Europe steps in and 
saves what is left, we shall go headlong to destruction.' " 

Pleasant language this for " a very distinguished statesman, a 
member of the Senate," to address to a member of the British 
Parliament ; and it would be worth our while to ask how it is 



21 

that men born and bred in America, and honoured and trusted by 
their fellow-citizens, could have sunk so very low, had we not 
learned that there is no depth of infamy to which the Northern 
advocate of Slavery and Rebellion will not descend. 

But looking simply at the platform, and witliout these outside 
guides to its meaning, I think it clear — 

1st. That its adoption invites and ensures foreign intervention 
in our domestic afi'airs. 

2d. That it renders prol)able instant recognition of the South- 
ern Confederacy. And 

3d. That it will operate to raise the blockade, and opens in 
stanter the Southern ports. Upon this last point it will be remem- 
bered, that M'hatever agreement may be made between two bellig- 
erents agreeing upon an armistice, or cessation of hostilities, as to 
tlie utatu quo, that agreement can not be made to bind neutrals. 

" The duties imposed upon them," says Hauteville, " by the 
state of war depend essentially upon its continuance. The mo- 
ment it ceases, from whatever cause, even temjwrarily^ peace is 
completely restored, as regards them, during the cessation of 
hostilities. They resume, then, all the rights which had been 
modified by the war, and can exercise them in their full extent 
during the whole time fixed for tlie duration of the truce, if this 
time has been limited by the agreement, and until the resumption 
of hostilities has been officially announced to them if it has not 
been limited.'' 

We need not stop to picture the activity with which French 
and English iron-clads, war steamers, gunboats, guns, ammuni- 
tion, and all the muniments of war Avould be rushed across the At- 
lantic to the Southern ports, opened to neutrals by a cessation of 
hostilities ; or to recognize the absurdity of supposing, if any 
body could be so absurd, that Mr. Davis, when thus materially 
strengthened, and, perhaps officially recognized by the Great 
Powers of Europe, would bend, in all humility, before the Flag 
of the Republic, or unite in a convention to amend the Constitu- 
tion by the popular majority, which he has repudiated, instead of 
defiantly demanding Southern independence, and looking forward 
to the day when lie might safely execute his olden resolution, to 
plant his flag in Washington and Boston. 



Does anybody suppose that onr European foes would not jump 
at such a chance as a cessation of hostilities would aiford, to give to 
our Kepublic the gouj> de grace ; or that Lord Clanricarde and his 
friends would not invoke heaven and earth to put a stop to what 
England, so innocent of blood, calls, with horror, " this dreadful 



carnage 



? " 



Would not the election of McClellan, under these circum- 
stances be, as General Wool has bluntly declared, the surrender 
of the United States to Jeff. Davis and his government ? Is it 
possible to imagine a more glaring case of J^ational suicide than 
would be the cessation of hostilities on our part towards this Ke- 
bellion, at the very moment when our grasp is tightening upon 
its throat ? On what reasonable or even plausible plea can this 
policy be defended ? 

For an answer to this question I have occasionally looked at 
The World and the News, both advocating McClellan's election, 
and, so far as I can understand, for precisely opposite reasons ;, 
The World on the ground that he is in favor of war, and the 
News because he is solemnly pledged to peace. Not having con- 
sulted The World to learn how to cast my own vote, I was not 
disturbed by the antagonistic arguments, but it is easy to imagine 
the incertitude and perplexity with which some Democrats must 
rise from the perusal of these daily sheets, morning after morn- 
ing, resolved to hold to the uttermost the Democratic faith, as 
taught by the Democratic organs, and yet embarrassed and con- 
fused beyond expression by the irreconcilable articles presented 
for their acceptance. 

On one point these differing sheets are unanimously agreed, and 
this is their entire readiness to secure and divide the spoils of the 
National Government, and provided they attain that desired end, 
they are not disposed to be unreasonably scrupulous as to the po- 
litical principles on which its attainment shall be effected. Mr. 
Amos Kendall is said to have remarked to an anxious inquirer 
about the party policy : " Let us elect McClellan, and we will 
settle all that afterwards." However convenient and admirable 
for their purposes may be this willingness to become all things to 
all men, it is at least natural that the American people, in view of 



23 

tlie sacrifices they have made, and of the issue which is at stake, 
should demand something more explicit in regard to the policy 
that is to govern the country for its preservation or its destruction, 
than the presentation of a disunion platform and a Union letter, 
with the request, " deposit your ballot and take your choice !" 

The truth, I believe, is that the J^^ew York managers of the 
party — Messrs. Belmont, Richmond and their friends — went to 
Chicago expecting to controul the Convention, and found to their 
disgust that they were in the hands of Western peace delegates, 
and of an outside mob headed by rebel sympathizers, members of 
secret societies who assumed the controul of the body and dictated 
the "surrender" resolution ; and that their last hope of saving the 
party from utter defeat and eternal infamy was, if possible, to 
divert attention from the peace platform by reiterating the cry 
of Union in tlie letter of acceptance. 

MK. WINTUROP's ARGUilENT IGNORING THE PLATFORM. 

On Tliursday last I found in the World an elaborate and in- 
genious speed 1 by an accomplished statesman of Massachusetts, 
the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, and it contains much with 
w^hich all loyal men will agree ; but Mr. Winthrop conveniently 
sliirks entirely, the great issue of peace or war presented in the 
Chicago and Baltimore platforms, tlie issue upon which the Pre- 
sidential contest is to be and ought to be decided. Indeed, in his 
previous effort at New York, wliere he was associated, I think, 
for the first time with Mr. Isaiah Rynders and tlie "friends" of 
Gov. Seymour, ^Mr. Winthrop treated Gen. McClellan as if he had 
been an independent candidate, at liberty to make his own plat- 
form, and choose in all things his own policy : instead of being one of 
two candidates designated together to execute a certain line of pol- 
icy, most deliberately marked out and unanimously adopted by the 
great representative Convention by whom they were nominated. 
Mr. Winthrop referred to the Convention and the Platform in a 
tone of sarcasm which was doul)tless perfectly sincere, declaring 
that he did not liold McClellan " responsible for any equivocal or 
unequivocal words of Chicago Conventions whicli malicious i)ar- 
tizans may attempt to assert to his injury," and that his support- 



24 



ers for the Presidency are " not to be scared from their position 
by any paper pellets of the brain, wise or otherwise, which ever 
came from the midnight sessions of a resolution committee in the 
hurly burly of a political convention." 

It is perhaps natural that Mr. Winthroji, with his social and 
political associations as a New England Whig, should regard w4th 
the deep contempt he so unmistakably expresses the Democratic 
body that met at Chicago, and the platform that they so carefully 
constructed ; but as a somewhat recent member of the party his 
interpretations are pexhaps hardly entitled to the same weight as 
those, for instance, of his elder brother in the Democratic faith, the 
Hon. Fernando AVood, and that gentleman gives us plainly to un- 
derstand that, whatever may be Gen. McClellan's private views, 
Mr. Geo. B. MeClellan, the nominee for the Presidency, acknowl- 
edges himself the creature of the Chicago Convention, and will 
^faithfully execute the policy he w^as chosen to fulfill. That is 
the understanding of Gov. Seymour, who said, at Milwaukee, " I 
think our candidate an able man, but no matter, for we fight this 
this battle on the general issue ;" and Gen. MeClellan in his letter 
recognizes the fact that he cannot accept the nomination without 
distinctly accepting the platform ; for, after expressing his views, 
he says, " Believing that the views I have expressed are the views 
of the Convention, I accept the nomination." 

A moment's reflection may satisfy Mr. AVinthrop that the bare 
insinuation that Mr. MeClellan, if elected, is capable of repudiat- 
ing the peace policy on the strength of which he had received 
the votes of the Peace Democrats who nominated him at Chicago, 
is more injurious to his reputation and more insulting to his 
honour, both as a soldier and a gentleman, than any charge that 
has yet been preferred by the most bitter of his opponents. 

The rule on this point with the Democratic party is absolutely 
imperative. Mr. Buchanan, after his nomination on the Cincin- 
nati platform said : " I Tnust square my conduct to that jplatfortn^ 
and insert no new jplank^ nor take one from itJ^ 

Thus, whatever Mr. McClellan's private views, he is as much 
bound to carry out the policy of the platform as Mr. Pendleton 
would be, who has said : 

" If you find conciliation impossible, if your differences are so 



25 

great that you cannot or will not settle them, then, gentlemen, let 
the seceding States depart in peace, let them establish their gov- 
ernment and empire, and work out their destiny according to the 
wisdom which God has given them." 

Kow, as Mr. Winthrop, if he votes for General McClcllan must 
vote also for Mr. Pendleton, — for they are inseparable on the elec- 
toral ticket: I do not quite see the consistency between the senti- 
ments he expresses in favour^ of another draft, if a draft be neces- 
sary, and of paying taxes and raising loans to maintain the 
supremacy of the Government, and the vote he proposes to give 
for a President and Yice President pledged to an immediate ces- 
sation of hostilities. Indeed, the policy of the Democratic party 
has not been strikingly consistent. For two years their persistent 
demand was for a more vigourous prosecution of the war ; and now 
that they liave got it, they demand that it shall not be prosecuted 
at all. 

Mr. Winthrop, discarding the platform, and treating this grand 
issue very much as if it were a question of personal preference, 
charges Mr. Lincoln and his friends first with virtually causing 
the war, and next with being incompetent to conclude it. 

He declares " if the in-coming President and his friends in 
Congress had given countenance and encouragement to the move- 
ment of the Peace Convention, and to tlie measures it proposed, 
tlie secession would have ended M-ith South Carolina and the 
Gulf States, and we should have had Union and peace before six 
months had expired. Tlie rebellion would liave been nipped in 
the bud ; it would have been crushed in the {:i:g, &c." 

AVhile this may be the oi)inion of Mr. Winthrop and his 
friends, it is expressly contradicted by the testimony of Mr. 
Everett, and by the deliberate convictions of the late Senator 
Douglas, who, while he had certainly no ])articular affection for 
Mr. Lincoln, nor any devotion to Rei)ublican principles, declared 
emphatically that if the rebels had been allowed to write their 
own terms on a sheet of blank paper they would not have ac- 
cepted it, and Douglas called on all Democrats to sustain the 
country and the Lincoln Administration in preference to party. 

The fact is, and it is a fact not now to Ijc forgotten or ignored, 
that such was the anxiety of the North at that time to settle this 



26 

thing bj eorajpromise, and to avoid war with its horrors, by every 
concession that could honourably be made, that the effort was 
prosecuted to such an extent, and continued under such indigni- 
ties, that the olive branch we extended so perseveringly was re- 
garded by the rebels as a sign of cowardice, and they hissed their 
contempt at us in the very Senate Chamber. 

"Mr. President," said Senator Wigfall of Texas, "Mr. Presi- 
dent, we have insulted your flag, we fired on tlie ' Queen of the 
West,' and you did not resent it." 

And so it would be now, were the American people to endorse 
the Chicago platform, which McClellan and Pendleton were nom- 
inated to execute. Were Grant to lower his colours to Lee, and 
tell him that tlie United States had concluded that the war was a 
failure and must be stopped ; were Slierman to request Hood to 
stay his flight and return to Atlanta, which was awaiting his ac- 
ceptance ; were Sheridan to dispatch his swiftest courier after 
Longstreet, to overtake his fleeing and scattered columns, and 
tender him a flag of truce and an ofl'er of armistice; — from every 
part of tlie Confederacy would come a cry of scornful triumph 
that would disturb the slumbers of our dead heroes who have 
died for their country ; for it would declare that they had died in 
vain ! 

On the testimony of a refugee from Atlanta, Mr. Winthrop 
tells us that " If Mr. Lincoln is elected, the people of the South 
will fight for thirty years." This comes, of course, from " a per- 
fectly reliable gentlemaTi," but does it look like fighting thirty 
years, when two-thirds of the army have deserted, and the Southern 
people j)refer our troops to their own ? 

The testimony of an unnamed refugee can hardly be expected 
to outweigh the assurances of Grant, the admissions of Davis, and 
th'C reiterated statements of the Richmond press. 

THE DEATH OF SLAVERY THE ACT OF THE REBELS. 

Slavery is dying, and will die by the laws of war, and the 
mad act of the slaveholders ; and its death will be an untold 
blessing, not only to the slaves, but to the Inmdreds and thous- 
ands of non-slaveholding whites, whom the base aristocracy of 



27 

slavery groimd to the very dust. Its death may well be mourned 
by the aristocratic Southern clique that would make their own 
power perpetual, for they know that with the extinction of slavery, 
schools and churches, manufactories and all the institutions of 
freedom and sources of prosperity will appear among them, and 
endow the labouring class with prosperity and independence. 
Mr. Everett has well expressed tlie opinion which will probably 
receive judicial sanction that " by the simple act of levying war 
against the United States the relation of slavery was terminated 
certainly so far as concerns the duty of the United States to recog- 
nize it or to refrain from interfering with it." 

If this be so, then the Proclamation of Emancipation may 
liave been unnecessary. 

But there are few national rights more clearly settled than the 
right of a nation at war — and the Supreme Court has decided that 
we are at war, and that the people within tlie limits of the rebel- 
lion are public enemies — to emancipate slaves as a military ne- 
cessity for the ])ro?ecution of the war, or as a guarantee of peace. 

There is one other view of the subject. It is clear that as 
subjects of the United States the Government was entitled to 
their allegiance, through tlie masters to whom they were held to 
service, and that when tliosc masters became armed traitors, the 
right of the Government to the allegiance of tlie slaves remained 
unimpaired ; tliat it had a perfect right in the exercise of its 
sovereignty to direct the slaves to render their allegiance directly 
to the Government, and in doing so to pledge protection to their 
wives and children. It may be that the slaves might with justice 
have answered the national Government, you have given us no 
protection, and we, therefore, owe you no allegiance, but as they 
cheerfully responded to the call, no stranger, and least of all, no 
rebel master, can raise such an objection. 

Tlieir heroism, again and again, has saved the honour of our 
Hag, and the lives of our friends and kinsmen, and if, as we 
thankfully and confidently believe, the day is near when their 
long servitude is to be ended, the American people will not 
soon forget the loyal aid they lent us, and the blood they so 
freely spilt, when their revilers were betraying the cause of tlie 
Republic, by giving aid and comfort to its foes. 



28 

But although it mav favour the purpose of those who sympa- 
thize with the Eebellion, and of the Democrats who are hungry 
for office, to represent the Eepublicans as the authors of the im- 
pending emancipation, the credit actually belongs to Mr. Davis 
and his confederates in the South, and their abettors in the Fre© 
States. Mr. Boyce told the South Carolinians in 1850 : "If se- 
cession should take place, of which I have no idea, for I cannot 
believe in such stupendous madness, I shall consider the institu- 
tion of slavery as doomed, and that the great God, in our blind- 
ness, has made us the instrument of its destruction." They knew 
well the stake for wdiicli they were playing, and that if they 
failed, slavery was doomed. Mr. Herschel V. Johnston says, in 
a recent letter : " The President of the Confederate States never 
uttered anything more true than when he said to the unofficial 
messenger of President Lincoln, that we are not fighting for 
slavery, but for the right of self-government." It seems proba- 
ble, from late accounts, that Mr. Davis is himself about to arm 
all the able-bodied negroes in the Confederacy, giving them their 
freedom ; and the ISTorthern gentlemen, who are so unhappy at 
the work of emancipation, originally inaugurated by secession, 
and presently to receive its completing touch from the hand of 
the arch-leader of the Rebellion, may more properly address their 
complaints to Richmond than to AVashington, and remember 
that if at any time the war has threatened to be a failure, it was 
when Mr. Lincoln, lending an ear to the insidious counsels from 
border States, and rebel sympathizers, permitted a thought for 
the interests of slavery to interfere with the preservation of the 
Union. "Whatever of delay — whatever of difficulty or danger, of 
waste of treasure or of life, resulting from the prolongation of this 
war, is connected with the slavery question — lies at the door of 
those who insisted on the National Army becoming slave catch- 
ers and guardians for the Southern rebels. 



MR. DISTRICT ATTORNEY HALL S SPEECH, AND THE TREATMENT OF 
UNION PRISONERS. 

Having referred at some length to Mr. Winthrop's effort, 
which is characterized by the Wo7'ld as " the most brilliant and 



29 



effective speech of the campaign," let me refer simply to the title 
of another speech which I find in the World of Friday, and 
which, judging from its headings, I presume was, perhaps, intended 
to influence a class of Democrats a shade lower than Mr. Win- 
throp's hearers. Here is the title : 



A. LIXCOLN AERAIGNED. 



Speech of Hon. A. Oakey Hall at New Haven, Ct., Last Evening. 



Counts in the Presentment. 



High Political Crimes and Low Partisan 'Misdemeanors the Sum Total. 



List of the Charges Peeferekd. 



Treason, Homicide, Arson, Kidnapping, Robbery, Perjury, Blasphemy, Profanity, 
Obscenity, Bribery, Embezzlement, Forgery, Mayhem and Thimble Rigging. 

The People to Decide the Case Nov. 8. 



etc., 



If Mr. District Attorney Oakey Hall will glance at a report 
just published, of the Committee appointed by the Sanitary Com- 
mission to inquire into the treatment of our prisoners by the 
rebels — a committee consisting of Dr. Mott, Dr. Delafield, Mr. 
Martin Wilkins, and other gentlemen of the sameliigh character — 
lie will find a record of crimes committed by the rebel rulers of 
the South against our gallant soldiers, whom the fortunes of war 
have placed in their power, with which he can harrow the feel- 
ings of any audience he may address without taxing his fertile 
imagination. He can frame an indictment for the systematic 
robbery, insult, starvation and murder to which they are exposed 
in every rebel prison of the South, where strong men are reduced, 
day by day, to the condition of skeletons — ragged, filthy, hide- 
ously diseased, devoured by vermin, frostbitten, and almost 
naked. Their scanty bread contained whole grains of corn, frao-- 
ments of cob, and pieces of husk; the meat tainted, the beans 
rotten, the soup briny with worms floating at the top, the total 
ration insufiicient to support life ; and the food sent to these pris- 
oners by their friends in the North stolen from its rightful owners 



30 



when they were both freezing and starving ! " The cold froze them," 
says the report, " because they were hungry, and the hunger con- 
sumed them because they were cold." Their keepers deliberately 
inflicted upon them the gnawing pains of hunger, and many are 
thus reduced by cruelty and starvation to all the stages of idiocy 
and imbecility. 

The conclusion sadly reached by the Committee, after the 
most careful deliberation, is that it was " all a determined plan, 
originating somewhere in the rebel councils, for outraging and 
disabling the soldiers of the enemy who had honourably surren- 
dered in the field." 

CONCLUSION. 

Is it with this rebel government, guilty of such crimes, where 
the prolonged agony is more dreadful than the brutal massacre of 
Fort Pillow, that the American people should consent to an 
armistice or commence a negotiation ? 

Is it to a party that proposes such an armistice and negotia- 
tion that the American people should surrender this government, 
especially when they remember that it is the same party that 
was in power when this rebellion first raised its head in the coun- 
cil of Buchanan, and used the power itself of the Executive to 
cripple, divide and betray the nation ? 

From that wretched depth of almost helpless humiliation 
we have risen, under the presidency of Mr. Lincoln, with the 
help of God and our own right arm, to the point of dignity and 
strength where we now stand. Whether we shall maintain our 
position and crush this rebel despotism, and emancipate the citi- 
zens and States of the South from its relentless grasp, and become 
once more an united people, to whose shores the oppressed of all 
nations shall come, and to whose bright example the oppressed 
nationalities of the world shall look, or whether, on the contrary, 
we shall surrender our birthright, surrender our national suprem- 
acy, our national integrity, and, more than all, our national honour, 
— this is tlie grand issue which, in the exercise of your sov- 
ereignty as Americans citizens, you are now called upon to 
decide. 



// f 

31 

" Since the days of ancient Rome," as the London Times re- 
marks, " no question so important has been submitted to popular 
decision." 

To you is committed by God, in this election, not simply the 
destinies of this Republic, but in large measure the future of 
christandom. 

The friends of civil freedom in other lands appeal to us on 
their own behalf as well as on our own. 

" The future of the American continent," wrote Prof. Gold- 
win Smith,- " hangs on the issue of this Avar, and as victory may 
incline to loyalty or rebellion, it will have the heritage of free- 
dom and of social justice, or of a tyranny darker and fouler than 
the darkest and foulest tyrannies of the old world. This contest 
touches the dearest interests and move the inmost hearts of men 
not on your continent alone. Everywhere it is felt to be, as 
in truth it is, a contest between the great parties that divide 
mankind — the party of justice and of the future, and the party 
of privilege and of the past. You have friends of the rebel 
slave-owners among you in the jS'orth, and so have we; and 
the same are the enemies not only of the American Republic, 
but of tlie hopes of man." 

And now I will close my too long address with a passage from 
one of John Bright's magnificent speeches, for it seems a fitting 
response both to the charge from Chicago that the war is a fail- 
ure, and to Mr. Hall's assault upon Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Bright, I 
may remark, is the champion and representative of the forty- 
nine-iiftieths of the working classes of Great Britain, who are 
absolutely disfranchised by her present laws, and who anxiously 
await your verdict in the election, whether the American Re- 
public shall stand in its glory or ignominiously fall. 

" Look," said Mr. Bright, " at the power which the L^nited 
States have developed ! They have brought more men into the 
field, they have built more ships for their navy, they have shown 
greater resources than any nation in Europe at this moment is 
ca])able of. * * Look at their industry. Notwithstanding this 
terrific struggle, their agriculture, their manufactures, and com- 
merce, proceed with an uninterrupted success. They are ruled 
by a l*rcsident, chosen, it is true, not from some worn-out royal 



32 / 

or noble blood, but from the people, and the one whose truthful- 
ness and spotless honour have claimed him universal praise ; and 
now the country that has been vilified through half the organs of 
the press in England during the last three years, and was pointed 
out, too, as an example to be shunned by many of your states- 
men, that country, now in mortal strife, aifords a haven and a 
home for multitudes flying from the burdens and the neglect of 
the old governments of Europe, and, when this mortal strife is 
over, when peace is restored, when slavery is destroyed, when the 
Union is cemented afresh, for I would say, in the language of one 
of our own poets, addressing his country : — 

' The grave's not dug where traitor hands shall lay, 
' In fearful haste, thy murdered corse away,' 

then Euroi3e and England may learn that an instructed democra- 
cy is the surest foundation of Government, and that education 
and freedom are the only sources of true greatness and true hap- 
piness among any people." 



